


One More Drifter In The Snow

by DangerousCommieSubversive



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Christmas, Gen, Homecoming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 05:45:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5194427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DangerousCommieSubversive/pseuds/DangerousCommieSubversive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha digs Bucky out of the snow and brings him home slowly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One More Drifter In The Snow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zethsaire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zethsaire/gifts).



 He didn’t leave D.C. for long.

He traced the steps of James Barnes back to New York for a while, but the streets there were a constant ache of memories just out of reach, and he already knows enough of the path through Europe that he doesn’t feel he needs to go back. Doesn’t want to go back, doesn’t want to look for places that might not be there, for people long dead.

So he came back to D.C., and he wandered the streets like a ghost and tried to remember who Bucky is.

So much had been taken from him, he realized. He hauled Captain America out of the river, for reasons that he wasn’t quite clear on, and it was only after he’d gotten away that he realized that he didn’t even know what  _day_  it was. Not the day of the week, not the year…nothing.

All he knew was that Captain America had thought he was someone else.

“Bucky.”

* * *

 

And now it’s been months, and he still doesn’t know who Bucky is. He knows who James Barnes was, inasmuch as anyone can know a man from documentaries and history books and exhibits at the Smithsonian. He knows Sergeant James Barnes of the US Army.

But he doesn’t know Bucky, who was a friend of Captain America.

Who is that supposed to be?

Because it’s certainly not him, although perhaps in time it could be.

It’s snowing hard. He’s huddled in a doorway, wrapped in layers of tattered coats to stave off the wind, when he hears a soft voice say, “James Barnes.”

A woman with red hair is looking down at him, and all he can say to her, all he can dredge out of the chaos of his memory, is, “I shot you once.”

“I forgive you.” She holds out a hand. “Get up.”

“You’re going to tell me that you’re here to bring me home, I think.” His voice is shockingly rough even to his own ears.

“People like us don’t have homes.”

He takes her hand and gets up.

* * *

 

She doesn’t bathe him or feed him or bandage his wounds. She just hands him a pile of folded clothes and a clean towel and tells him where to find the bathroom in her apartment and that he can have whatever’s in the kitchen. As if he’s an adult, a human being capable of making his own decisions. In return, he leaves his prosthetic arm on the bathroom counter while he’s showering and trusts her not to take it, even closes his eyes under the water and lets himself enjoy the sweet smell of her shampoo without looking for hunters or handlers.

His arm is still there when he gets out of the shower and dries off. He bandages his own wounds. In her little apartment kitchen he makes bacon and scrambled eggs on an autopilot that he didn’t know he had.

It’s only after he’s finished that he realizes that he’s made enough for two, so he brings a plate to the woman with red hair too. She doesn’t thank him. But then, he doesn’t thank her either.

The only thing she says is, “Tell me when you’re ready to meet Steve.”

“I don’t think Steve wants to meet me.” He sits down across from her.

“I’ve found it’s generally safer not to make assumptions about what Steve does and doesn’t want.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Natasha. Who are you?”

* * *

 

It’s the first thing she says every day.

“Tell me when you’re ready to meet Steve.”

* * *

 

Until the day she  _doesn’t_  say it.

Instead she hands him a new sweater, a soft thing in pitch-black cashmere, and says, “Merry Christmas.”

He stares down at the folded sweater in his hands and says, “I’m ready to meet Steve.”

“I thought you might be.” And she actually smiles at him. She hasn’t done that before. Which isn’t to say that she hasn’t smiled at  _all,_  but she’s never smiled at _him._  “Go put on your new sweater and we’ll go see him.”

* * *

 

Natasha takes him to a little house, and the man who answers the door isn’t Steve. It’s Steve’s friend.  _Sam,_  she told him before they left.  _His name is Sam._

“That’s one hell of a present, Nattie.”

“Don’t call me Nattie.”

“Merry Christmas, ninja queen.”

Natasha smiles at Sam. They hug.

And then there’s Steve, and he comes out, and he stops, and he stares, and he says, “Bucky?”

The man who used to be the Winter Soldier says, “No.”

A pause.

“But I’d like you to tell me about him.”


End file.
